This invention relates to a latchable package such as a box, which may be used in the packaging of items. In particular, though not exclusively, the invention relates to a child-resistant package for storing potentially hazardous materials such as, for example, pharmaceuticals, which must be kept safe from children or irresponsible adults.
The safe storage of potentially hazardous materials such as pharmaceuticals has long been a problem for families with young children. Whilst parents desire access to a wide range of pharmaceuticals in order to be able to treat illnesses promptly and easily, the natural curiosity of children can cause them to seek out and ingest such materials when unsupervised. This can have serious consequences. For example, an overdose of virtually any pharmaceutical is injurious to health. Indeed some pharmaceuticals are entirely unsuitable for children and have an adverse effect on the health of children even if handled or ingested in very small quantities.
For the sake of simplicity, potentially hazardous materials such as those described above will hereinafter simply be referred to as “hazardous materials”. Additionally, the problems described above are not limited to children and can also arise in respect of irresponsible or forgetful adults, such as for example some mentally ill or mentally disabled patients, or the elderly who may be prone to confusion as to the contents of a package. Whilst the focus of this specification is on children, it will be appreciated that the majority of what is described herein applies analogously to irresponsible or forgetful adults. All such analogies are within the scope of this specification, even where reference is made only to children.
In light of their dangerous nature, hazardous materials must be kept out of the reach of children. This is an established practice that is of fundamental importance and which may be augmented, but can never be replaced, by child resistant closures (CRCs). CRCs make it harder for children to extract hazardous materials from a package, if they do manage gain access to them in packaged form.
Many CRC designs have been suggested in the past. However, such CRC designs are often complicated in structure and expensive to manufacture. In particular, assembly processes are typically longer and more complex for child-resistant packages, which results in a costlier manufacturing process. Since the cost of packaging is generally passed on to consumers, this leads consumers to buy products in non-resistant packaging where available, thereby increasing the risk of accidental poisonings and the like. Minimising complexity of a CRC design and its manufacturing process, and hence minimising its cost, is therefore crucial in providing a successful CRC.
It is important to balance the child-resistance of a CRC with reasonable ease of opening for adults wishing to access the contents of the package. For example, adults needing to take medication housed in the package may be physically impaired. Current CRC designs often require two-handed operation as an inherent part of their child resistance. However, this two-handed design can be inconvenient for users, for example if users have dexterity in only one hand, or if users need to open a CRC whilst using one hand for another task.
A further design consideration is that once a CRC has been opened, it is important that it can be easily and perceptibly returned to a secured position. If the mechanism for returning the CRC to a secured position is too complicated, the user may omit to return the CRC to the secured position, thereby leaving the hazardous material more easily accessible. If it is not obvious to the user that the CRC has been returned to the secured position, the user may inadvertently fail to secure the package correctly before it is returned to its storage place, negating the child-resistant design.
It is an object of this invention to address at least one of the problems described above.